Servicers: How More Properties Could Enter the Greek Market

Buying or renting a property has become an unattainable dream for a large portion of the population, a reality confirmed by the latest Alpha Bank report published yesterday. Despite recent Greek government initiatives, the housing crisis remains acute.

Demand continues to outpace supply, and the need to inject more properties into the market is more urgent than ever.

Bad Loans and Loan Servicers

Market experts believe that, in addition to building new homes, there’s another avenue to boost housing supply: the properties held by loan servicers. Loan servicers (or loan servicing companies) are specialized firms that manage loans on behalf of lenders or investors, particularly after the loan has been issued. They are commonly used in mortgage, consumer, and commercial lending.

These fall into two main categories and could provide much-needed relief to the housing market.

The first category includes an estimated 700,000 properties currently held by loan management companies. These cannot be sold on the market without the borrower’s consent. In such cases, servicers are already proposing “consensual sales” to the borrowers, allowing the property to be sold with the borrower’s agreement.

The second category consists of properties that have ended up in servicers’ portfolios following foreclosure auctions. These account for approximately 12,000–13,000 properties that could potentially enter the market. However, this process is far from simple. These properties often face legal or technical obstacles, such as building code violations or unresolved legal issues. As a result, it can take up to a year and a half to prepare them for sale.

According to servicer representatives, delays in land registry processing and in various public services are significant. Court backlogs also create issues, especially in the case of legal objections (appeals) where hearing dates are pushed back, preventing properties from being sold in a timely manner.

What servicers are asking for

Servicers are calling for faster procedures to clear the legal status of properties more efficiently and allow quicker sales. They have also proposed a policy change: giving buyers the option to take on the responsibility of resolving outstanding legal or technical issues tied to a property, instead of the current requirement for funds to do so. As an incentive, buyers would be offered a discount on the purchase price.

This measure, servicers argue, could significantly increase the flow of properties into the market and help ease Greece’s housing supply crisis.

Source: tovima.com